Interestingly this does not appear to use the Sony A900 sensor, having a slightly smaller pixel pitch. Still the camera costs more than twice as much as the Sony. I'm not sure why everyone expected it to be much cheaper than the 1DS MKIII introductory price, both about $8K, and less on the street.
At least those with D3 housings will not need a housing upgrade.

Interestingly this does not appear to use the Sony A900 sensor, having a slightly smaller pixel pitch. Still the camera costs more than twice as much as the Sony. I'm not sure why everyone expected it to be much cheaper than the 1DS MKIII introductory price, both about $8K and less on the street.

You are indeed correct Loftus. I do not monitor the price of the Canons being a Nikon shooter..... If Canon's already available 1Ds MkIII is around that price, no reason why Nikon's shouldn't be. The question I have now is whether the body and layout is exactly the same as the D3 and hence able to use current housings?

Interestingly this does not appear to use the Sony A900 sensor, having a slightly smaller pixel pitch.

It has a modified version of the sony sensor. The pictures published are clearly showed this. Small improvements can be expected but nothing serious for the UW-folks.People already invested to D3-housing may consider it but a cheaper d700x would be a better option many people wish for.Me as a sony user I wish for an a900 housing (if I would win on lottery).

I know Thom Hogan and all these guys complain etc, etc, but it seems to me when all is said and done, Nikon now has 2 'professional' type cameras designed to compete with the 1DS and 1D respectively, and which arguably have a slight edge over Canon in terms of their respective sensors. In the long run though I am not confident that Nikon will be successful against Canon, particularly as Canon have economies of scale that Nikon simply cannot match. This is evident in the 5DSMkII which will obviously be far more successful than it's direct Nikon competitor, the D700.

I also read Nikon discontinued the 17-35mm. This is sad for those of you who don't own this lens. I almost sold mine. It's a wonderful lens and now has a new lease on life with the return of FF.

Yes this will be sad, particularly for the underwater crowd. Topside it makes sense, as we have the 14-24 and 24-70, but underwater, if the 14-24 is not a viable wide angle option, we'll be SOOL for a FF rectilinear wide underwater.

They can eventually put the 24mpix sensor into the D700 for a D700x to compete w/ the 5DII - but that's an economic decision only.CheersJames

I'm not sure that would really be a great move, because I think the D700 will then take a hit against the 5DII in terms of ISO and frame rate as well. It will be interesting to see whether the RAW noise performance of the 5DMkII is as good as the 700. If that's the case, Nikon really has a problem.

It's actually quite funny to see all the whining about the price point of the D3x. People have been holding back and waiting for the D3x for quite some time - especially after the firmware slip-up they made earlier in the year. But for underwater shooters, what does the D3x bring to the table that the D3 doesn't already have? If purely for the want of more pixels, then yes, however, after looking at some D3x high ISO samples, I think the D3 still has the edge on high ISO performance. I moved to a D3 because of the high ISO capabilities. A D3x wouldn't make much difference to me.